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Death-car driver pleads guilty

A man who misled police in a fatal Knight Street Bridge accident in May of 2010, has now pled guilty to impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death.

Juan Alvarez will be sentenced in Richmond provincial court on Wednesday, and the family of the passenger who also died in the accident—Juan Carlos Quijano-Flores—will be in the court gallery to hear his fate.

Richmond RCMP Cpl. Stephanie Ashton said in the early morning hours of May 6, 2010, local Mounties were called to a single-vehicle crash on Knight Street which claimed the life of Quijano-Flores, 27.

Investigators were led to believe by Alvarez that he was sleeping in the back seat of the car while Quijano-Flores was driving.

But following an intense and lengthy RCMP investigation by the detachment's road safety unit, RCMP collision analysts and the RCMP identification services unit, investigators determined that Quijano-Flores was not the driver.

DNA evidence found in the car, and on the road, led investigators to conclude that Alvarez was actually the driver at the time of the crash.

"This tragic death has affected two families, both the young man who died and the young man who will spend the rest of his life dealing with his role in the crash," Ashton said.

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